After hearing the prompt tone, everyone entered the villa's back garden through the glass door.
Originally, after the Diamond Secret Room game, everyone should have gone straight back to the card wall to find the Guardian and claim their reward, but this time they were led into a garden instead.
The garden is very large, with many tall trees and winding, crisscrossing cobblestone paths, like another maze.
A countdown of 5:00 appeared in the floating box above everyone's heads.
The group looked at each other in bewilderment.
Old Mo couldn't help but say, "The paths in this garden look very complicated; it must be a small maze. Didn't we successfully solve the puzzle and escape the escape room? Why is there still a 5-minute countdown? Do we have to escape this garden again?"
Xiao Lou carefully recalled the hint she received when leaving the villa—the truth was about to be revealed.
This reminds me of what the Guardian said when we entered the Diamond 9 secret room —that the rewards for this secret room are also related to the puzzles you solve. If you solve the puzzles in the reward room, you can obtain a rare card.
Thinking of this, Xiao Lou's eyes lit up: "This is a reward maze."
Upon hearing this, Ye Qi became excited: "I understand now. It's just like the treasure chest maze in a single-player RPG game. At the end of each fork in the road, there's either a treasure chest containing equipment or a very difficult monster to defeat."
Xiao Lou agreed, saying, "The reward maze has a 5-minute time limit. Everyone needs to find the treasure chest and get the card as soon as possible. We'll split into groups and use the Four-Way Arrow to mark the forks in the road as we go."
No one objected to Xiao Lou's arrangement. They continued with the previous grouping: Xiao Lou, the Long Qu couple, and Lao Mo were in one group, while Yu Hanjiang led CEO Shao, Ye Qi, and Liu Qiao. The group dispersed at the first fork in the road, with one group going to the left and the other to the right.
After walking for a short while, Xiao Lou and his friends saw a grid-patterned path.
The squares were painted in different colors. The first three rows each had one red square, the fourth row had two blue squares side by side, the fifth row was red, the sixth row had two blue squares side by side, and the seventh row was drawn as a semicircle and was green.
This stretch of road is made up of interconnected grids, making it look like a row of houses.
Xiao Lou looked at the colored squares on the ground with a puzzled expression: "Three red squares, then two blue squares side by side, then another red square, two more blue squares side by side, and finally a green square... What does this mean?"
Qu Wanyue chuckled and said, " Professor Xiao, did you ever play hopscotch when you were little?"
Xiao Lou touched his nose sheepishly: "I've never played it before."
He has always preferred quiet since childhood, unlike other boys who are mischievous. His favorite game is building blocks at home, and he has never played hopscotch.
Long Sen pointed to the grid pattern on the ground and said, "This is the children's hopscotch game. The first three squares require hopping on one foot, the fourth row of squares are side by side, and you can stand on both feet; the fifth row is also a single square, and you can hop on one foot, the sixth row is on both feet; the last row is a semi-circle, called the 'house,' where you can rest for a few seconds. You can't rest on the squares in front of it."
Xiao Lou suddenly realized: "Single squares require one foot, two squares side by side require two feet, and the last house is for resting... We need to follow this rule for this entire stretch, otherwise we might be punished?"
Qu Wanyue said, "That's right, this whole stretch of road is like a children's hopscotch game, and we have to follow the rules."
Long Sen led the way, followed closely by Qu Wanyue and Lao Mo, with Xiao Lou trailing behind. They hopped forward in a pattern of one foot, one foot, one foot, two feet, one foot, two feet, and then rested. After about half a minute, they came to a fork in the road.
Xiao Lou left a mark at the fork in the road, and everyone went left first. After walking a few steps, they found a treasure chest.
This treasure chest had no password; inside was a card.
[Special Effects Card: Hopscotch]
Rarity: S
Description: Maze reward card. Can be obtained by searching the treasure chest after clearing an A-rank maze.
Effect: Instantly creates a large hopscotch grid in a 500×500 meter area. Everyone in the area must walk according to the rules of the hopscotch game. If either foot steps in the wrong direction, a penalty will be imposed.
Cooling time: 24 hours.
The punishment is as follows: if you step on the wrong square, you will be frozen in that square for 3 minutes.
This card is very powerful; its large grid area can slow down enemies that enter the area.
When being chased, setting up a "hopscotch game" like this, where they slowly hop over on one foot and then on both feet, is far more effective than the 9-second short-range immobilization of Nine Palaces Grid.
If used in conjunction with a card that causes blindness, such as Old Lady Qin's [Human Bone Medicine Jar], in a situation where everything is in the dark, people will definitely accidentally move to the wrong square, and the control time will naturally increase.
Xiao Lou put away the S card and asked Yu Hanjiang through the Telepathic Connection channel, "Did you make any progress on your end?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "I just walked through a grid."
Their team also encountered colored squares, but these were long, horizontal stripes, alternating between black and white.
The grid arrangement is: white black white black white white black white black white black white black white.
Upon seeing the black and white checkered pattern, Yu Hanjiang knew it must be a trampling mechanism; stepping on the wrong one would definitely result in punishment.
For example, he might fall into a pit, so he didn't move for the time being.
Just as I was about to ask my teammates for their opinions, Ye Qi immediately said, "These are piano keys! The white squares are the seven notes on the piano: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and xi. The black squares are for falling and rising keys. We should step on the white squares to play the correct notes and avoid touching the black squares."
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "Okay, let's go." He trusted Ye Qi's judgment.
Ye Qi took the lead and heard the piano note "do" when he stepped on the first white square. He continued to step on the next square, and sure enough, the white squares were the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 keys of the piano.
Ye Qi's teammates quickly passed through the piano key area and saw a glittering treasure chest around the corner.
Yu Hanjiang opened the treasure chest and found a card inside.
[Toolboard: Piano Music Box]
Rarity: S
Description: Maze reward card. Can be obtained by searching the treasure chest after clearing an A-rank maze.
Additional Skill 1: Music Box
Open the piano music box in your hand and play the music " Marriage Damour ". During the 1 minute that the music box plays, all targets within a 50-meter radius will fall into a deep sleep. Cooldown time: 4 hours.
Additional Skill 2: Piano Playing
Enlarge the piano music box in your hand proportionally to create a real piano of the same size. Have someone sit at the piano and play any piece. During the performance, enemy targets within a 100-meter radius will immediately freeze in place, intently listening to the music, unable to move or use any card skills. Friendly targets can move but cannot use skills. This can only be used once per room.
Note: Only piano pieces can be performed, and the pieces cannot be changed midway through the performance.
Ye Qi excitedly took the card and said, "This card is better than the erhu I drew before! Especially the second skill, which allows you to select an enemy target. When I sit at the piano and play a super long piece, the enemy can only watch from the side, unable to move or use their card skills, hahaha!"
Seeing his happy expression, Shao Qingge chuckled and patted Xiao Ye's shoulder, saying, "This is like you're giving a solo concert. The card only allows you to play one piano piece. How long can you play the longest piano piece?"
Ye Qi chuckled and said, "The longest piano piece in the world is 'Trouble' by American composer Eric Sati. The entire piece lasts 18 hours and 40 minutes, and many pianists take turns playing it, which can be played continuously for a whole day and night."
Everyone: "..."
Ye Qi said with a regretful expression, "Unfortunately, I don't know how."
Shao Qingge sighed and asked, "Of all the piano pieces you know, how long can you play the longest?"
Ye Qi laughed and said, "I know a few Beethoven sonatas, about 20 minutes long, which is long enough to control the time."
Of all the crowd control cards I've drawn so far, [Piano Music Box] has the most flexible skill. The duration of the crowd control is the same as the duration of the piano piece played, making it almost tailor-made for Ye Qi. Ye Qi can play Beethoven sonatas to control the enemy for 20 minutes continuously. However, it can only be used once per secret room, which is quite restrictive and can only be used in the most critical moments.
Furthermore, one of the card skills states that the enemy cannot move or attack, while our side cannot attack but can move.
In other words, if Ye Qi controls the enemy for 20 minutes, our team can wipe out all the enemy targets. This one-sided, slicing-like situation is unacceptable. At most, Ye Qi can control a large number of enemies, allowing our teammates to move and escape. Once the teammates are in a safe position, we can use various teleportation skills to pull Ye Qi there, effectively giving the team 20 minutes to escape.
Yu Hanjiang explained the card skills to Xiao Lou, who was delighted: "This reward maze wasn't too difficult, but the quality of the cards we got was quite high. There are still 2 minutes left in the countdown, let's look around some more."
For the next three minutes, everyone wandered around the back garden for a long time and found some treasure chests, but they didn't contain cards; instead, they contained some strange fragments of letters.
Finally, when everyone met at the maze's exit, all the fragments were pieced together to form a complete letter.
The truth behind the Diamond 9 [Music Maze] case has finally been revealed.
That necklace was a gift from Susan to Shirley for her 18th birthday; the two were high school classmates.
Sherry removed the intimate photos of the two from the album.
They had originally agreed never to marry, but Shirley, due to her status, face, and family pressure, betrayed her and married Wells. After the marriage, the two still kept in touch privately, and she often used the excuse of discussing business with Wells to meet with Shirley.
Wells kept explaining to his wife that Susan and he were just classmates and business partners, hoping she wouldn't overthink it.
What he didn't expect was that Susan kept contacting him not for him, but for his wife.
Some time ago, due to her daughter's illness, Shirley decided to return to her family and completely cut off contact with Susan. This provoked Susan, who felt that Shirley had betrayed their years-long relationship. Just like in the book " The Lover," the two eventually had to separate, each marrying their own husbands, but could only cherish the memory of each other for the rest of their lives.
So she made a crazy decision.
She killed Sherry and her entire family of three, and then died in the garden herself.
At the exit of the maze, they found Susan's body. Xiao Lou glanced at it and said,
"It was suicide."